Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) Infection During Pregnancy In China: A Retrospective Cohort Study

Mingzhu Yin; Lijuan Zhang; Guangtong Deng; Chaofei Han; Minxue Shen; Hongyin Sun; Furong Zeng; Wei Zhang; Lan Chen; Qingqing Luo; Dujuan Yao; Min Wu; Shihuan Yu; Hui Chen; David Baud; Xiang Chen

For this retrospective cohort study, we included two cohorts of female inpatients (20-40 years old, female) from Jan 28 to Feb 28, 2020, at Wuhan Union and Tongji hospitals of Huazhong University of Science and Technology. All female patients were diagnosed as COVID-19 based on the New Coronavirus Pneumonia Prevention and Control Program (6th edition) published by the National Health Commission of China. 16 A total of 68 patients were initially enrolled, and 2 patients were excluded from our study because they had tumors with COVID-19 (one had cervical cancer and the other had lymphoma in non-pregnant group). Finally, we recruited 66 hospitalized patients with with data collection form. Two study investigators (CH, LZ) independently collected and validated the data. Maternal throat swab samples from the upper respiratory tract were collected at admission in viral-transport medium. Amniotic fluid samples, placenta samples, neonatal throat and anal swab samples were collected immediately after delivery in the operating room. Breastmilk samples were also collected for SARS-CoV-2 testing to evaluate the evidence of vertical transmission. The presence of SARS-CoV-2 was detected with the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommended kit (BioGerm, Shanghai, China), following WHO guidelines for qRT-PCR. 17 The primers used have been described previously. 12